It was astonishing for me to read the response of L. Michael Hall (letters, December 2009) to my 2008 article ‘NLP is not based on constructivism’. It makes three main points, neatly arranged into separate sections. It did quite shock me.

‘1. NLP grew out of the work of the pioneers of the cognitive psychology movement.’ Hall says that I ‘failed to mention’ George Miller, Eugene Galanter, Karl Pribram and Noam Chomsky. None of these is ordinarily included in the history of constructivism, although we find the occasional brief nod to Chomsky. These people may well be relevant to NLP, but I don’t see how they are related in any important way to constructivism.

‘2. NLP also grew out of the Constructivism of General Semantics.’ This may well be true, but Korzybski is not generally quoted as a father of constructivism, and indeed is not to be found in the index of most accounts of constructivism. So again, relevant no doubt to NLP, but in my opinion not particularly to constructivism. Personally, I love old Korzybski, but that is not the point.

‘3. NLP grew out of the Constructivism of Gregory Bateson.’ Bateson is, of course, one of the great thinkers of the last century, and is quoted by all sorts of people to all sorts of ends, but his connection with constructivism seems to me loose and certainly not central. How he can be relevant to my original article is not clear to me at all.

Hall may know his NLP, but I question his knowledge of constructivism. A curious fact is that the title of his letter is ‘NLP and constructionism’, Of course, this may be an editorial error, but on page 148 Hall does throw in the term ‘constructionism’ as if it were the same thing. Constructionism is not the same as constructivism. These distinctions are well laid out in a new book on constructivist psychotherapy by Chiari and Nuzzo (2010), which has the best account of the origins and use of constructivism that I have seen, together with an account of the differences from constructionism. The little book by Neimeyer (2009) is also very good.

Hall ends up by referring to ‘the systemic cognitive-behavioural model of NLP’ which seems to me quite a different label altogether. The idea that constructivism is somehow the same thing as a systemic cognitive- ehavioural model is puzzling to me.

Correspondence
Dr John Rowan
70 Kings Head Hill,
North Chingford,
London
E4 7LY.

References
Chiari, G. & Nuzzo, M.L. (2010). Constructivist psychotherapy. Hove: Routledge.

Neimeyer, R.A. (2009). Constructivist psychotherapy.Hove: Routledge.

Editor’s Note: An editorial error does not appear to have been made by The Coaching Psychologist in the previous issue when publishing the title of the letter as ‘NLP coaching and constructionism’.